By Lincoln E. Steed
Those words come from William Butler Yeats 1919 poem “The Second Coming.” He wrote it immediately after the Great War—expected to be, hoped to be, by many, the last war. (So much for hope over realism.) He also wrote it just after the so-called Spanish flu had killed as many as 50 million worldwide and 675,000 out of a U.S. population of 100 million. A curious side fact is that flu treatment at the time was largely a massive dose of up to 30 grams a day of aspirin. We now know that above four grams is unsafe; and one has to wonder at the comorbidity effect of aspirin overdose, which manifested as hyperventilation and fluid on the lungs!
Which makes me feel just a little less secure now that I have my second Moderna shot! No headaches yet, so no need to take an aspirin!
After a year of COVID, all signs are that people have had enough. Plenty of people seem not to bother with masks; they want to have parties and family get-togethers, and the roads are as busy as ever getting there. Yes, the number of deaths seem to be declining as we get used to treating this evolving malady; but infection rates remain disturbingly high, and mutated varieties promise continued peril.
So let the band play on. After the Spanish flu (probably originating in New York, by the way), the same eat, drink, and be merry mood prevailed. Of course, it was more than just the end of gasping for breath; the trench war was over, the old world gone with much of the new generation, and those left obviously thought it best for mayflies to flutter and be gay. It was the flapper era, and in Germany the cabaret scene for blue angels. Such a pity that barely two decades later the world would end again.
I can’t shake the feeling that we are about to dance across that no-man’s land again ourselves.